The invention relates to an organometallic compound and, more particularly, to an organometallic compound serving as electroluminescent material for an organic electroluminescent display device.
Recently, with the development and wide application of electronic products, such as mobile phones, PDA, and notebook computers, there has been increasing demand for flat display elements which consume less electric power and occupy less space. Organic electroluminescent devices are self-emitting and highly luminous, with wider viewing angle, faster response speed, and simpler fabrication, making them the industry display of choice.
Generally, an OLED is composed of a light-emitting layer sandwiched between a pair of electrodes. When an electric field is applied to the electrodes, the cathode injects electrons into the light-emitting layer and the anode injects holes into the light-emitting layer. When the electrons recombine with the holes in the light-emitting layer and excitons are formed. Recombination of electron and hole results in emission.
Depending on the spin states of the hole and electron, the exciton which results from hole and electron recombination can have either a triplet or singlet spin state. Luminescence from a singlet exciton results in fluorescence whereas luminescence from a triplet exciton results in phosphorescence. The emissive efficiency of phosphorescence is three times that of fluorescence. Therefore, it is crucial to develop highly efficient phosphorescent material, in order to increase the emissive efficiency of the OLED.
Certain organometallic complexes have been reported as having intense phosphorescence (Lamansky, et al., Inorganic Chemistry, 2001, 40, 1704), and efficient OLEDs emitting in the green to red spectrum have been prepared with these complexes (Lamansky, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2001, 123, 4304). U.S. Patent Application Publication 2003/0072964A1 discloses a phosphorescent organometallic complex including phenylquinolinato ligands. Other emissive organometallic complexes can be found in U.S. Patent Application Publication 20020024293A1, 20020182441A1, 20030116788A1 and 20040102632A1.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,465,115 discloses a compound used as light-emitting layer material having the structure:

wherein K is Ir or Pt, R″ is alkyl group, Y is acetylacetonate, picolinate, or dipivaloylmetanate, and i and j are integer of 0 to 6, respectively.
While effective red or blue light-emitting organometallic complexes have been developed, more effort in development of organometallic complexes emitting green light is required.